The Wizard of Oz

The Musical

Book by John Kane

Music by Herbert Stothart, Harold Arlen, E.Y. “Yip” Harburg

Lyrics by Harold Arlen, E.Y. “Yip” Harburg

Here On The Flight Path

Kephart Mainstage (249)

by Norm Foster

The new Norm Foster Festival, the first festival ever to showcase a Canadian playwright’s work, continues from strength to strength.  The Festival’s first offering was Foster’s recent play On a First Name Basis from 2013 starring the playwright himself.  For the second of its three shows, the Festival has chosen one of Foster’s most popular plays of plays of the 1990s – Here on the Flight Path from 1997.  It’s a strong production in acting, design and direction, sure to please Foster’s legions of fans and to make converts of newcomers.

The play is set in two adjoining balconies on the fourth and top floor of an apartment building under the flight path of an airport in an unnamed major city, most likely Toronto.  As David Wootten’s very realistic design makes clear, the the balcony on stage right is much used, with a barbecue set, chair, tables and boxes of empty beer cans, while the balcony stage left is deserted.  The renter of the stage right apartment is John Cummings (Jamie Williams), who narrates and acts out excerpts of his encounters with the three different women who move into and out of the apartment next door over the period of about three and a half years.

Proposals

Kephart Mainstage (252)

Play by Neil Simon

This elegiac memory play delightfully recalls the last time the Hines family gathered at their retreat in the Poconos. The summer of 1953 brings romantic entanglements that coalesce one idyllic afternoon; Burt Hines, mid-50’s and convalescing from a second heart attack, eagerly anticipates the arrival of the ex-wife he still loves. Daughter Josie has just broken her engagement to a Harvard law student and pines for his buddy Ray, an aspiring writer with whom she once had a brief fling. Clemma, the black housekeeper at the center of the action casts a astute eye on the complications while facing with her own unresolved past.

Anything Goes

Kephart Mainstage (251)

Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Book by Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse, Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Music, dance, laughs, and the age-old tale of Boy Meets Girl… Anything Goes is Delightful, Delicious and De-Lovely!

The Full Monty

Kephart Mainstage (250)

Book by Terrence McNally
Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek

Based on the cult hit film of the same name, The Full Monty, a ten-time Tony Award nominee, is filled with honest affection, engaging melodies and the most highly anticipated closing number of any show. The powerhouse team of Terrence McNally (Ragtime) and David Yazbek (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) cooks up

While spying on their wives at a “Girls’ Night Out,” a group of unemployed steelworkers from Buffalo sees how much they enjoy watching male strippers. Jealous, out of work and feeling emasculated, the men come up with a bold and unclothed way to make some quick cash. In preparing, they find themselves extremely exposed; not merely physically but emotionally. As they conquer their fears, self-consciousness and prejudices, the men come to discover that they’re stronger as a group, and the strength that they find in each other gives them the individual courage to “let it go.”

Rabbit Hole

Kephart Mainstage (On Stage)

By David Lindsay-Abaire

The Corbetts are a happy suburban couple whose lives are changed forever when their young son Danny is killed in an accident. Eight months on, Becca wants to start afresh in a new home and give away their son’s possessions, but Howie wants to keep the memory of Danny alive. Can they ever find their way back to each other? David Lindsay-Abaire’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, filled with distinctive wit and grace, charts the path from grief to its antidotes – love and hope.

Annie

Kephart Mainstage (Holiday Show)

Book by Thomas Meehan
Music by Charles Strouse
Lyrics by Martin Charnin

Based on the popular comic strip by Harold Gray, Annie has become a worldwide phenomenon and was the winner of seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The beloved book and score by Tony Award winners, Thomas Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin, features some of the greatest musical theatre hits ever written, including “Tomorrow.”

With equal measures of pluck and positivity, little orphan Annie charms everyone’s hearts despite a next-to-nothing start in 1930s New York City. She is determined to find the parents who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep of a New York City Orphanage that is run by the cruel, embittered Miss Hannigan. With the help of the other girls in the Orphanage, Annie escapes to the wondrous world of NYC. In adventure after fun-filled adventure, Annie foils Miss Hannigan’s evil machinations… and even befriends President Franklin Delano Roosevelt! She finds a new home and family in billionaire, Oliver Warbucks, his personal secretary, Grace Farrell, and a lovable mutt named Sandy.